Chapter Text
Their father is apprehended as they stepped off the plane, as he warned them he might be. A plainclothes FBI agent was waiting for them at the end of the jet bridge, discreetly displaying his badge on his hip.
“Timothy Ratliff?”
“That’s me.” their father responds evenly. “I imagine you’re interested in having a conversation.”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Alright, well,” their father looks to his family on either side of him, and Saxon can see his Adam’s apple bobbing in the column of his throat. “Is my family free to go?”
“They are, sir. We’ll take them back to your residence.” the agent confirms. “But you’ll have to come with me.”
Saxon had asked his father as many questions as he could on the 18 hour flight back, crouching in the aisle next to Timothy’s lay down bed, hissing follow ups with increasingly manic intensity while the flight attendants jostled his legs over and over with their carts.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” is where he eventually gets stuck. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
His father looked at him with tired eyes. Saxon cannot imagine what the last six days had been like for him.
“I wanted you to enjoy the vacation.” he said it so simply, so sadly. Saxon’s heart ached. “There was nothing either of us could do, all the way on the other side of the world.” But deep down, Saxon knows it’s more than that. There’s nothing Saxon could have done, period. Not from Thailand, not from the office, not from his father’s right hand side.
Two rows back, Lochlan and Piper lay in their side by side beds, fitfully sleeping. He stands over them for a moment on the way back to his seat, watching their soft faces--so much more like each other’s than his own—and their chests under the feather-light duvets rising and falling nearly in unison. For a moment he thought to wake them, tell them what was going on, but decided against it. Let them live in the old world a little longer. Let them enjoy the last good night’s sleep they would have for a long, long time.
As they approach the gate into the arrivals area, they become aware of a distant commotion behind the heavy double doors. Their father slows his gait, puts a hand on the agent’s arm, leans in close and says something in his ear that Saxon couldn’t catch.
“No, sir.” the agent replies at normal volume. “I’m afraid this is the only exit. We’ll have to take you all through here.” For a moment his father stands there rooted, staring ahead, and the look on his face when he finally turns to face them makes Saxon’s blood run cold.
“Kids.” he says slowly. “Victoria. There’s going to be some people out there.”
“What people?” their mother demands. Without her medication, she had taken two Ambien and drank the first class cabin dry of white wine and champagne. Saxons suspects she might still be drunk.
Saxon knows the answer before their father has to say it. “The press.”
His mother turns to him, then to her husband. Mouth agape, eyes like silver dollars. “Oh, Timothy.” she whispers. “Timothy. I can’t. I can’t.” Tears begin to well in her eyes. “We can’t go out there. We can’t be seen like this.”
“We don’t have a choice.” And that look again on his father’s face. That same look from the other night (was it last night? Two nights ago? Another lifetime?) when they had the cocktails. “Victoria, we don’t have a choice.”
The agent clears his throat. “Sir, I appreciate that this is a difficult time for you and your family, but I’m going to need you all to move along. There’s cars waiting for all of you outside.” After a look at Victoria’s horror stricken face he adds, “I can bring you out first, sir, if that might make things easier.”
“Yes,” his father says, distantly, something in his face turning off, powering down. “Yes, I think that would be easiest. Thank you, agent.”
The four of them stand and watch as their father is lead out of the terminal. The doors open, and the tsunami crashes in. A million flashbulbs popping, boom mics hovering over a crowd of what must be at least thirty reporters crowded against the gate. Saxon hears broken snippets of commotion, shouting questions, demanding howls.
“Mr. Ratliff, Mr. Ratliff, Financial Times, is it true that some of the funds were diverted from—”
“Mr. Ratliff, over here, Bloomberg News, are you aware Kenny Nguyen has been hospitalized for—”
“Mr. Ratliff, People Magazine, what exactly were you and your family aware of before you landed in the US today?”
The doors swing shut behind them, the tsunami abruptly silenced. His mother is shaking, one hand knotted in the neckline of her blouse. A mildly curious TSA agent eyes them from her post by the doors. Saxon takes a breath, turns to the three of them, their eyes wide and panicked. This is how it’s going to be now, he realizes. It crashes over him like a wave, panic rising from his calves into the pit of his stomach. Just the four of them, for a very long time.
“Okay.” he tells them. “This is what we’re going to do.”
The next day, front page of the Wall Street Journal—his father and the agent, the agent’s hand coming up like he’s blocking his eyes from the sun, his father staring straight ahead, his eyes glazed. The caption read: Timothy Ratliff, escorted by a government official on Sunday out of Raleigh-Durham International airport after returning from a family vacation in Thailand. Officials say he is fully cooperating with the investigation.
And then further down, sandwiched between a paragraph detailing Kenny Nguyen’s previous work at Blackrock and another about the third indicted plaintiff, a second photo. Saxon was in front, his body taking up most of the frame, sunglasses on. He had needed them, to tell where he was going over the blinding TV lights. The only evidence of his mother’s presence there was the dome of her sunhat peaking over his left shoulder. On the far side of her was Piper, an arm around their mother’s shoulders, head bowed, only her dark crown visible. And behind Saxon, blocking the reporters from the side, was Lochy, ball cap pulled low over his furrowed brow, his lips a thin line, staring at Saxon’s back like he’d die if he looked elsewhere. Piper had offered to take that side, knowing whoever it was would have their faces blasted across the financial press almost as much as their father and Saxon’s, but Lochlan had insisted.
Accompanying Ratliff were his wife and children, including his son Saxon, a junior associate at Ratliff & Murtagh. He was not taken in for questioning at the time of his father’s surrender. Inside sources indicate that he had limited knowledge of the embezzlement.
--
A day earlier (two days ago, a lifetime?), he had felt something wrong far before they arrived at the villa from breakfast, something about the eerie jungle silence broken only by the screech of the howler monkeys jumping from treetop to treetop above them. He thought for a moment to say it—“Mom, this feels weird”—but it felt like some spooky paranoid thing Piper would say so he bit it down.
A resort medic was standing at the front steps when they arrived, filling out something out on a clip board.
“Um, excuse me! Hello!” his mother had chirped. Without her medication she was almost too lucid, her eyes a little crazed. Piper floated besides him, on another plane entirely. Since coming back from the monastery she seemed lighter, quicker with a smile. She had gone glass for glass on the passion fruit mimosas with their mother at breakfast, cheersing happily with each new arrival. He had noticed her new earrings, delicate Celine braided gold hoops that he only recognized because he used to fuck an associate attorney at Goldsmith & Saints that exclusively wore them and had a thing about her earlobes.
The medic, a pretty middle aged Thai woman, jumped to attention at the sound of his mother’s voice, nearly running up to meet them. “Hello, Mrs. Ratliff. There was a slight—”
“Why are you here?” his mother cut her off. “Is something wrong?”
“No! Nothing wrong, thankfully, just a small—”
His mother wasn’t listening, had already bowled past her up the stairs. “TIMOTHY! TIMOTHY!”
He and Piper hesitated behind, Piper’s big eyes trained on the woman, slightly tipsy for the first time in the entire trip. “Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Yes, everything is fine.” The medic assured them. “Your brother just had a small—”
At the mention of Lochlan, his heart stuttered. He remembered their last conversation, his frantic desire to shut it down as quickly as possible. He knew Lochy had tried but god, he just didn’t have it in him. Couldn’t face it.
“What happened?” he pressed.
“Just a small incident!” The medic insisted in her perfect accented English. “Your brother had some kind of reaction and your father called us over. He’s fine, he’s—”
He and Piper leave her behind without hearing the rest, rushing up the stairs into the living room, sandeled feet skidding on the tiled floor, racing each other to get to Lochlan first.
Lochy sat on the couch, wrapped in one of their dad’s Duke sweatshirts, ruddy cheeked and ashen, his watery eyes rimmed red and his face tear streaked but otherwise intact. Their parents were already flanking either side so Piper fell to to her knees in front of him, her big eyes guilty and searching. Saxon hesitated just behind the coffee table
“What happened!” Piper wailed. “Oh, Lochy, what happened!”
Their father had an arm around him, cuddling him close. “Ate something that didn’t agree with him.” he said softly, trying to make it breezy, and failing. “Just gave me a little scare, is all.”
“He vomited and passed out.” their mother stressed to Saxon and Piper both. “He threw up blood, in the pool.”
“Not blood.” Lochlan offered weakly. “And not in the pool. On the side of it.” No one seemed to hear him besides Saxon.
“What made you sick?” Piper asked.
“He drank one of Saxon’s protein shakes.” their father told them, and Saxon’s guilt ran strong and hot. Of course, that’s why Lochy didn’t like them, he was allergic. On top of everything else, he had been poisoning him the entire time---
“No,” Lochlan interjected. “I mean, yes. But I made the protein shake with the—with the stuff in the blender from last night. I didn’t think--
“Wait, you didn’t—” Piper’s eyes switched from concern to slight disgust and judgment. “Loch, you didn’t wash out the blender?”
Saxon couldn’t help but snort. His mind went back to being eighteen so easily. “Wanted a little taste of that alllllcohol, Lochy?” He drew the word out lasciviously. Lochlan didn’t laugh, just closed his eyes and groaned, losing whatever color was left in his face besides the bright fever spots burning high in his apple cheeks.
“Well, my god, if that doesn’t solve it.” their mother threw up her hands. “Young man! Your father told you that coconut milk was spoiled! And after it had been left out all night too!” At Lochlan’s feet, Piper gave a theatrically violent gag.
His father’s shoulders sank, pulling Lochlan closer. “Exactly. That’s what I told him. I told you all that milk was bad. Dumb, dumb decision.”
“I’m sorry.” Lochlan groaned miserably, arms wound around his stomach. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Their mother then stole him entirely, wrapping both arms around him and pulling him into her, nestling her face into his curls. “Oh don’t apologize, you poor thing. You’re okay. That’s all that matters.”
Their father stood up with a declarative hhmph. “You’re right, Vic. That is all that matters. Loch, you need to lie down?”
Lochlan nodded meekly, his face buried in the crook of their mother’s neck.
“Sax?” their father said, pointing to him. “Mind playing nurse? Your mother and I need to pack.” Saxon’s heart picked up speed but he swallowed heavily, nodding.
“Sure thing. C’mere, dude.” He reached for Lochlan, who took his hand weakly and stood up on wobbly feet. He swayed a bit and Saxon caught him, Piper appearing on his other side.
“I can help.” she insisted, a protective arm around Lochlan’s back. “We got him, dad.” she said back to their parents. “Go pack. He’s fine.” And the three of them walked towards the boys’ bedroom, Lochlan shivering between them in his giant sweatshirt, snot running out of his nose.
“Sax, can you go get him a tissue?” Piper half-whispered as she noticed, as though Lochlan couldn’t hear them.
“You go do it.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Why can’t you?
“Because I asked first.” she hissed, tightening her grip around Lochlan’s shoulders. They stared each other down until Lochlan let out a particularly miserable sniff and Piper broke first, as she always did.
“Fine, I’ll get it.” She stalked towards the common area bathroom and Lochlan and Saxon were left alone. Saxon walked him into the bedroom and got him into his bed, pulling the covers up around him. He was still shivering despite the muggy Thailand heat, feverish and meek.
“Hey man,” Saxon crouched so they were eye level. “You good?”
“Yeah.” Lochlan confirmed, eyes screwed shut. “I just feel like an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot. It happens. Pina coladas will do that to you, even the normal ones. Welcome to drinking.”
Lochlan snorted a weak laugh and Saxon dared to reach a hand out, pet his curls tentatively. “Did it hurt?”
“Yeah.” Lochlan admitted. “Like a bitch. I threw up. Like, a lot.”
There was a pang in Saxon’s chest, something familiar that he hadn’t felt towards Lochlan in a long while. Normal, older brother protectiveness. Sadness at his pain. Wishing he could take it away, pride that Lochlan had taken it and kept going. It felt good, to feel that way again, instead of the sick, other thing.
“Must’ve been scary.”
Lochlan’s eyes opened at that, still a little glazed. “It was.” he said. “I was really scared.” He bit his lip, eyes going somewhere else, over Saxon’s shoulder. Tears pricked at the corners, threaten to spill. “It sounds stupid but I really thought I was gonna die.” Saxon’s grip tightened on his head, his thumb coming around to stroke Lochlan’s cheekbone. This poor kid. What the fuck had this place done to him?
The door opened and Piper entered, a wad of tissues clutched in her hand. “Here you go, Lochy.” she soothed, nudging Saxon away so she could sit on the side of the bed, urging Lochlan upward. “Blow,” she commanded, holding the tissues to Lochlan’s nose like their mom used to do when they were little and sick. Lochlan did, his back flexing as he cleared the snot. Saxon sat back on his hands, wondering what his place was in all this. Here, in this room. Here, in Lochlan’s life. He got up and left them to it. Went to the empty living room and poured himself a drink.
But then. The gunshots. Beautiful Chelsea face down in the water, her hair floating like a water lily around her head. He didn’t wait to see them pull her out, couldn’t stomach it, never looked at her one last time. He’s happy he didn’t, in the end. That he’d always remember her smiling.
--
The four of them came back from Thailand in April to face the rising Carolina heat, burning alive together in the house their father built. The family photos on the mantle, Saxon and his father’s sports memorabilia lining the walls of the basement, the guest-bedroom-turned- Piper’s-Buddhist-sanctuary before she got her fucking head knocked on straight sitting unused and haunted. His childhood bedroom had been redecorated to a slightly more mature style when he was in high school and fitted with a queen bed but it still was tight and off putting. Lochlan’s face on every surface, at every age, his doe brown eyes gazing at Saxon while he was just trying to watch some fucking TV. Being there made him feel strangled, like he was being buried alive, but he couldn’t move on.
His lease at his fancy high rise apartment downtown had lapsed soon after they returned and he let it, knowing he couldn’t afford it for the following year. All his important shit had already been moved back to the family home so he could take care of his mom. Lochy’s college decision for the following fall had been made for him with their father’s indictment, the in state tuition of UNC an obvious and insurmountable item in the Pro column, and nothing Duke had to offer could match that. Saxon thinks it might’ve happened that way even without their father, that Lochy would’ve aligned himself with the women anyway, in the end.
Piper’s senior year tuition had been paid in full up front, allowing her to finish out the year and graduate unscathed. She had an apartment twenty minutes away on campus but she must have felt the same aching pull towards home that Saxon did, because she was there four nights a week. A month before she finishes school, he gets a text from his mother in a group chat to him and Lochlan: Your sister got into that theological anthropology master’s program, text her congratulations please! followed by a champagne emoji, a dancing woman emoji, and what Saxon suspects his mother thought was a yin/yang symbol but was actually a beach ball. To his surprise, his mother actually followed up on this text in person, pointedly reminded him again as he sat in the sun room reading another one of Chelsea’s books.
“Don’t forget!” she singsongs, wagging a finger.
This is something he could do without, the new found alliance between Piper and their mother. For years, the teams had been clear. Their father and Piper, Saxon and their mother, Lochlan as the wild card. Four of them felt too even, unnaturally balanced. No one to make a decision, no one to pick a path. He had always berated Lochlan for not being decisive enough, but now he realized Lochlan may have been the most decisive of them all, always forcing the tie.
Saxon loses his job, of course. He can’t even bring himself to hate her, the pug-faced HR woman given the unfortunate task of letting him go.
“We’re marking it down as a layoff.” she said it like she was doing him a favor. My father did you a fucking favor by hiring you ten years ago, he wanted to sneer, but he knew that leverage was dead and gone. “You’ll get a very generous severance package and a letter of good reference.”
He had sat through hours of interviews with the feds, showed them everything they asked for. “Lay it all out there, Sax.” his father had advised. “The truth of it is so much less than what they want, as far as you’re concerned.” And Saxon hadn’t know. He really hadn’t know. And the extent to which he hadn’t know, the breadth of the information that he had to learn from news articles and YouTube videos kind of kills him. There’s a part of him, a big part of him, that wishes he was rotting in jail too. That his father had trusted him enough to scheme with him.
“Well,” his mother said when he dared to voice the most sanitized version of this to her late one night on the porch, after one too many glasses of scotch for him and three too many glasses of wine for her. “Look at Bernie Madoff’s son. He didn’t know anything either. Completely innocent. Allegedly. And then he just went and killed himself anyway. Kinda the easy way out, if you ask me. Not like you, sticking around, doing right by your family.”
She gave him a look like that was supposed to make him feel better and he tipped his head back and laughed at the absurdity of it. He loved her, he thought in that moment. The woman was a fucking head case but goddamn, was she always in his corner.
The promised severance package is indeed generous, and arrives exactly on time. He tried to transfer to his mother’s account to no avail.
“Saxon,” she had said with her eyes shut behind her round sunglasses, a hand held up towards him like she couldn’t bear to look at him. “I am not taking money from my child. I would literally rather die.” It’s not my money. He thought. It’s dad’s money, just coming back to us in this way. But she wouldn’t hear anything more.
---
After the brief moment of tender contact during Lochlan’s medical scare, the shock of the investigation had snapped Saxon back to reality. The press was after them and Jesus Fucking Christ, could he imagine the headlines if even a whisper of what happened at the resort came to light. He wakes drenched in sweat more than once that spring, heaving from nightmares where Chloe comes to him with a flash drive in her hand, a wry smile on her lips. “Oh yes,” Dream Chloe purrs to him. “Did I not mention there were cameras on the boat? Gary is very serious about security.” The next WSJ photo caption: Ratliff not only committed several federal-level financial crimes but also sired two sexually deviant gay freaks of nature. Click here for a link to the full video. He lies in bed at night sick with anxiety at the thought of it, fists screwed into his eyes.
Despite his best efforts, the night is inescapable, burned into the back of his retinas like a fried computer monitor. He obsessively watches porn for a bit, even worse than he used to be, going down increasingly depraved rabbit holes in an effort to drive it out of his mind. Women being gang banged by 15 guys, tied up so tightly that their engorged tits and toes turn purple, cocks forced down their throats until they cry and puke. Stuff where the point is that they’re not enjoying it. None of it takes. What would’ve previously enticed at least mild curiosity in him leaves him feeling sick and a bit rattled. Even some of his old favorites make him balk, makes him wonder what the fuck was wrong with him that this used to turn him on. And then he has to laugh, as though he’s one to fucking talk about judging anyone about what turns them on.
He has to turn to a different solution, then, to make the days spent in his house bearable. He had told Lochlan to let it drop, to pretend like nothing ever happened, so he takes his own medicine. He pushes past his shame, the unbearable tension that sits between him and Lochlan now, throws himself into acting exactly as he used to towards his younger brother.
Except sometimes he can’t exactly remember what that was. It used to be so easy, Lochlan his little satellite planet, the only person in his life that he didn’t have to strategize his way around, and he finds himself overthinking it every time they’re alone together. His jokes take on a new level of edge, the profanity too much for even his mother sometimes. He knows he’s over correcting, teases too hard or pulls Lochlan’s curls too tightly, but they’ll ease back into it, he rationalizes. He just getting used to it again, it’ll go back to how it was if he just keeps trying.
Lochlan goes to senior prom with his childhood friend Jenny, someone that Saxon had relentlessly goaded him for years about potentially banging. She was sweet and small, like Lochy, with strawberry blonde hair always in twin braids and big blue eyes behind cat eye glasses that were kinda hot, in a dorky way. Saxon had known her since she was in elementary school, so he’s a bit startled to find her in his living room with her body on display in a tight green gown with ruffled sleeves. She had her contacts in and her hair flowed in long waves down her slim back. She’s pinning a boutonniere of simple white flowers to Lochlan’s lapel while their mothers take photos, exclaiming over how cute they are.
He can’t help it, his mouth on autopilot. “Well, well, well, what do we have here.” he drawls. “Jenny, you look beautiful.” She looks up to see who it is and immediately her pale face colors, her freckles standing out against the blush. Saxon took it for fact that all of Piper and Lochlan’s female friends had a crush on him, and probably some of the male ones too.
His mother exclaims happily at his entrance, and orders him to come take a photo with Lochlan. Lochlan opens his mouth as though to protest but thinks better of it. Saxon obliges, throwing an arm around Lochlan as casually as he can, smiles for the twin iPhones pointed at them. He can feel how tense Lochlan’s shoulders are under his arm, and his stomach sinks. He aches for a time not so long ago, when Lochlan would’ve sunk into him, put an arm around his waist and squeezed.
“Have fun, dude.” he tells Lochlan as everyone packs up to get the happy couple to the hotel downtown where the prom is being held. “You look great.” And he does, in one of Saxon’s old suits tailored to fit his narrow frame, his hair gelled just enough into submission. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” he says with a wink, pinching Lochlan’s side hard. Lochlan snorts and grins, bowing his body away from his brother.
“Doesn’t leave much.” he counters, and Saxon leaves him with a clap on the back, watching out the front windows as they all pile into Jenny’s mom’s car and pull away. He thinks of his own prom, where he got drunk outside the venue with a flask filled with too-nice whiskey filched from his dad’s liquor cabinet. He had sloppily fucked his date in the trunk bed of his best friend’s SUV, and then projectile vomited in the front garden of the house as he stumbled up the drive in the early hours. His mother had only been angry that his acidic puke had killed some her hostas.
Lochan had already mentioned he and Jenny would stay the night at a friend’s house closer to the hotel so Saxon lingers on the ground floor the next day, one eye out the windows to await Lochlan’s return. He doesn’t want to admit how eager he is to see him, how much he’s looking forward to hearing about his night. They might find something to laugh over, some inane story that gives Saxon an excuse to praise him. This is normal, he tells himself. This is a normal thing to want to do as an older brother.
The door opens around three, Lochlan slinking into the living room in a t-shirt, gym shorts and slides. He tosses his suit bag over the back of the couch and cards a hand through his hair, now back to its full unruliness. “I’m so hungover.” he announces to no one in particular.
“Atta boy. How was it?” Saxon asks from his place on the recliner, trying for nonchalant.
Lochlan shrugs, smiles. “It was fun.” is all he gives. “Food kinda sucked but they played good music.”
“And your friend’s house?”
“The same.”
His reticence annoys Saxon, and the annoyance feels good. Here he is, working his ass off to put things back to normal and Lochlan is giving him nothing.
“What were the sleeping arrangements?” he presses, and Lochlan shrugs again.
“Lots of air mattresses and sleeping bags. Everyone was kinda everywhere.”
“Where did you and Jenny sleep?” Nothing. Saxon pushes harder. “Same bed?”
“Same air mattress.” Lochlan confirms, and he colors a bit. Oh my god. Did he fuck her?
Saxon says as much, can’t stop the words from coming out of his mouth. “Did you get any—” he makes an exaggerated crude gesture, arching his hips off the arm chair comically and hits the sides of his hands against his hips like he’s giving a girl backshots. Lochlan does laugh at this, a real one, and Saxon breaths a bit easier.
“Of course not, Sax. She’s, like, my best friend.”
“Oh, they always are, Lochy. They always are, until one night…” he waggles his eyebrows suggestively. Saxon laughs again, putting a hand up to his face.
“No, no, not us. Some other people though. Like, in the basement with everyone there, trying to sleep. It was wild.”
The image floods Saxon’s mind before he can help it, Lochlan lying awake in the noisy dark, dick getting hard in his basketball shorts listening to his friend take some girl’s virginity ten feet away. Did he touch himself? Did he--
No. No. Saxon blinks rapidly, wills it away. Back to teasing, back to fun.
“And that didn’t get Jenny a little hot?”
Lochlan rolls his eyes again and sighs. “No, man. Drop it.”
“Why!”
“Because nothing happened. We just slept.”
“I’m telling you, Lochy, if you haven’t tried to go to that well, it’s worth a shot.”
“Why do you say that?”
The words are tumbling out of Saxon, reaching for whatever he can say to get another reaction. “Cause it’s like I said. You’re a good looking guy, she’s probably wanted it forever.”
“She doesn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that, actually.”
Saxon snorts. “Shame. The mousy chicks are the craziest in bed. It’s all the porn they read, I swear. I bet she would’ve let you fuck her in front of everyone too, bet she would’ve liked it like that.” He barks out a laugh at the idea of quiet Jenny uttering more than ten syllables in sequence, much less moaning in a room full of other people.
Lochlan changes on a dime, eyes flashing. “Don’t talk about her that way, Sax.” he says, his spine suddenly straight at attention. “That’s fucking disgusting.”
Saxon continues to push himself through the laugh, unsure how to back out.
“I’m serious, man.” Lochlan is staring at him with something dangerously close to hate. “Rag on me all you want, but don’t fucking talk about my friends like that.”
“Alright, big man.” Saxon snorts, his heart hammering as he realizes what a mistake he made. “Take a chill pill.” Lochlan stares at him for a long, hard moment before stalking upstairs, where the slam of his door makes the whole house rattle.
Saxon turns his head to find Piper standing in the doorway to the porch, arms crossed.
“He’s right. That was disgusting.” she says.
He can’t even come up with anything clever, his pride smarting, his stomach churning. Lochlan has never looked at him like that before. “Oh, why don’t you go get fucked, Piper.”
“Mature!” she calls out as he, too, gets up and barrels out, heading for the front door, pulling out his phone to text his buddy downtown to see what they can get up to. They meet at a bar for a drink, which turns into three, which turns into eight, and he ends up back at the apartment of some pretty med student who has to ride him for what feels like hours before he can come. He has to bodily pull her up off of him to keep from busting inside of her, his come spurting over his stomach and the insides of her thighs.
Anonymous pussy used to cure nearly all of his ills, but it must’ve lost its magic because he’s still smarting when he returns home the next day to a quiet house. Piper is in the kitchen making a sandwich with her headphones on, listening to some bullshit girl talk podcast, no doubt.
“Where’s mom?” he asks. She squints at him, nudges a headphone off her ear and makes him repeat himself before confirming their mother is on the porch.
He doesn’t want to talk to her, not now, so he goes to the den, hoping for somewhere silent and cool to sleep off the rest of his hangover. But Lochlan is already there on the couch, watching some documentary.
“Hey.” Saxon says, somehow self conscious, like Lochlan can sense the med school girl on him.
“Hey.” Lochlan replies flatly, eyes trained on the screen.
‘What’s this?” Saxon moves in front of the couch but pointedly doesn’t take a seat, waits for Lochlan to ask him to. “Anything good?”
“No.” is all Lochlan says. The terseness again. It infuriates him but he can’t back away. He waits for Lochlan to cave, to say something, and he does but it’s not what Saxon expects, not at all.
“That was fucked up, what you said yesterday.”
“What?” Saxon is caught off guard. Lochlan has never called him out, not since yesterday, and he doesn’t like that this is becoming a pattern. He can’t work within this, this new dynamic between them.
“You heard me.”
“When did you get so fucking sensitive?” And that’s a lie. He’s always been sensitive, Saxon just didn’t have to care before.
Lochlan stands up suddenly from the couch, turning sharply to face him. “Look, Saxon,” He can tell Lochy’s truly pissed but it still just comes off as whiny, which angers Saxon off even more. “I don’t know what you want from me. You talk to me like I’m your dog. One day you’re all over me, the next you won’t even look at me.”
“All over you?” Saxon scoffs, the hair pricking in the back of his neck at the insinuation. He felt like 30% of his brain power exclusively went to insuring he was over Lochlan exactly the normal amount.
“Yes,” Lochlan holds his ground. “Don’t stand there and act dumb, I can’t get the fuck away from you sometimes.” He had grown, Saxon realized. He had grown while Saxon wasn’t looking. Or, more accurately, when Saxon had been forcing himself not to look.
He shoves the thought back, focuses on the hot fever of irritation building between his ribs. All he’s been trying to do is make things better. Things with Lochlan, things with everything. And what kind of fucking help has he gotten from the rest of them? “You better watch it, Loch. Watch what you fucking say.”
“Or what?” Lochlan’s lips curl up, his little teeth clenched, his handsome brow furrowed. Where was little Lochy, his sweet baby brother? Behind in Thailand, he supposes. With the rest of the dead things. “Or what, Sax? What’re you going to that hasn’t already–”
Saxon knows the end of the sentence already. What harm will he do to Lochlan that hasn’t already been done? How can he ruin him further when he’s already destroyed so much? He doesn’t want to hear it, can’t bear to hear it, so before Lochlan can get the rest out, he tackles him. They crash over the back of the sofa and onto the hardwood floor, Saxon howling in pain as his ankle hits something on the way down.
Saxon lands on top but Lochlan’s got a surprising strength to him, grabbing his wrists up and away from his face as Saxon tries to get a hand on him. To do what, Saxon doesn’t know. Hit him or hold his face, or some third, worse thing. Lochlan’s hand slips and Saxon weakly belts him, a sloppy sidewinder that barely knocks his face to the side, but when Lochlan looks back up at him with wild eyes, his lip is bleeding.
“Fuck you.” Lochlan grunts and drives a knee hard into the center of Saxon’s back. Saxon doubles over from the blow, wind knocked out him and face perilously close to Lochlan’s. He hasn’t been this close to him in months. Maybe never will again. Lochlan takes the opportunity to scramble out from underneath Saxon’s straddle, only to force him onto his back and climb back on top of him, long thin hands coming to wrap around Saxon’s throat. Saxon holds him back with a forearm but Lochlan leans his entire body weight against him, one hand leaving Saxon’s windpipe, winding back, when suddenly, Piper’s screech fills the air.
“Oh my god, Saxon—MOM!---Lochy, get off of him–MOM, THE BOYS!--”
And then she’s behind Lochlan, staring down at Saxon with the ceiling light illuminating her from behind like a halo. His savior. She wraps her arms around Lochlan’s waist and tips backwards, forcing him with her and off of Saxon. Lochlan strains against it, clawing back to reach for Saxon again but she holds on. In some private part of him, Saxon urges her to let go. He misses the weight of him.
Their mother enters from the porch and stops in her tracks, surveying the damage–Lochlan’s bloody lip, the smashed Mitchell Gold lamp that used to decorate the side table–now identified as the source of the jagged cut on the top of Saxon’s foot.
“Oh, now what have you two done.” she mutters. Piper releases Lochlan and springs to her feet.
“Now do you see?” she demands. “Now do you get it? He’s still fucking with us, he won’t let up.” It takes Saxon a moment to place that she’s talking about him and for god’s sake, what the fuck has he done to Piper recently? She wheels towards Lochlan. “You’re too brainwashed to see it but it isn’t right, Lochy, it is not right that you let him treat you this way.”
“We were just wrestling.” Lochlan mutters miserably from his place on the floor, suddenly contrite. “C’mon Piper, it wasn’t–”
“NO.” she says, her voice gaining a bass level he has never heard. “I’m done with the excuses. I’m done with it. Mom–” she’s on their mother again, eyes glinting. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Well what do you propose I do, Piper?” their mother drawls, exasperated. It occurs to Saxon that this is the culmination of many, many conversations they have had before.
“Kick him OUT!” Piper squeals, her little hands flailing. “Make him leave! God, I am so fucking sick of being the only person with a sense of fucking reality in this house!”
What, Saxon thinks as he gets up from the floor, the fuck is so wrong with him to make so many women in his life hate him like this?
Piper storms out of the living room, stomping her feet for extra emphasis up the stairs into her bedroom. Lochlan remains silent on the ground, one hand pressed against his bleeding lip. He won’t meet Saxon’s eyes. Is this what you want too, you little pussy? He thinks. You fucking traitor.
Lochlan stands up, his long limbs unfurling until he’s at full height, almost as tall as Saxon now. “I’m just gonna….go see if she’s…” he trails off into nothing, swiping at the blood on his lips and cheek again. “I’m sorry about the lamp, Mom. I’ll replace it.”
“That’s okay, sweetheart. It was looking a little dated anyway.” she says evenly. They both watch as Lochlan leaves, the long line of his back as he mounts the stairs, turns at the landing, and disappears above them, his footsteps barely audible until the dull creak of the floors indicates his arrival in Piper’s room.
“Well,” his mother starts after a long silence. “That kind of behavior is just…not acceptable. From the both of you. With your father away, I just–” She reaches up, removes her sunglasses with a trembling hand. Her eyes, the mirrors of Lochlan’s own, pierce into his. “You know, Saxon, that this is just the beginning. Your father will not be home for a long, long time.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Saxon asks. “You think that’s not the first thought in my mind every fucking day when I wake up?”
“There’s no need to cuss.” Her hand flutters to her collarbone, holds for a minute, before dropping back to her side. “Your sister is obviously in hysterics and I understand that. She’s under a lot of stress. But there is going to be changes, starting with Lochlan.”
Nausea rises in the back of his throat and he swallows hard, focuses on breathing in through his nose. This is it, he thinks. The other shoe is dropping. They were braindead to think they could keep it secret for this long. He’s played this conversation out a million times in his head, can imagine what his mother will say next. All that boy did was love you and look up to you, and look what you did to him. Turned him into some kind of sicko. Twisted his admiration and confused him, made it something disgusting.
But what she does say is somehow more shocking. “We’re selling the house, once Lochlan leaves for school. So you will need to figure something else out.”
In all his nightmares, he never could’ve imagined his mother giving up this house. She loved this place with every fiber of her being, crafted it into her dream with a small army of general contractors. He thinks of the Southern Living feature, carefully framed above the loveseat in the sitting room. The centerfold spread of the five of them artfully arranged on the bench in front of the backyard pond, the purple hydrangea bushes dancing at the edges. She had pushed the shoot back two weeks, he remembers, to ensure they were at full bloom.
“Where will you live?” he sputters, reeling.
“The lake. Piper and I, while she works on her masters. Lochlan, when he’s home from school. And your father when he’s...back. And you, if you’d like to join. On the weekends.”
The lake. Of course. Private, secluded, gated. Somewhere no one could find them. And, the back office part of his brain starts to calculate, with lower property taxes, less upkeep, smaller staff. The sale of the Durham house would net them several desperately needed millions for his father’s legal defense fund.
“But no matter where we are,” And this is her Scary Voice now, the annunciation like a bullet. “The teasing and the goading and the pinching and the prodding ends now. You need to stop–” And now here he knows it’s not his imagination. She pauses, her voice dying in her throat. His stomach clenches again, dares her to say it.
Need to stop what, mom? Stop what, exactly?
“You need to stop picking on him.” she seem satisfied with that word choice. “I mean it, Saxon James. You need to leave that boy alone.”
As if he didn’t feel like enough of a fucking sick freak already. Being told to stay away from his kid brother like some kind of creepy uncle. He nods.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, I’m glad we’re at an agreement.” She dusts her hands together like she’s accomplished anything manual. “Now, where in the world is Barbara to come clean this, I know that woman heard it–BARBARA! BARBARA! For heaven’s sake I–”
And with that she’s gone, whirling into the depths of the house in a swirl of caftan skirt and clopping espadrilles. And then he is alone.
I gotta get out of here. He thinks to himself. I gotta get the fuck out of this house.